


The Punishment Games

by frozenCinders



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
Genre: Gen, heavily hinted mitsuboru because it's impossible to write mitsuki otherwise, original yugioh manga esque au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:22:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28784892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozenCinders/pseuds/frozenCinders
Summary: After a strange occurrence during a meteor shower, Boruto starts to realize he has not been conscious for some of his own actions. He also notices that certain people are mysteriously dropping like flies around him.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

He's experiencing it again. A meteor shower, his family entranced by the sky, the white noise of the nearby festival. Some kids who have gotten bored of the display are playing with a ball. Boruto swears it went flying over a fence just a second ago, but they somehow paid it no mind, running off in the opposite direction without a care in the world.

When he goes to retrieve it for them, thinking he'll be nice and do them a favor, the small crater on the ground does not hold a rubber ball. It's a strange, porous rock a bit larger than his hand, and fading heat radiates from it like a stovetop that been turned off. Curious, Boruto touches it, and the rock falls open into three uneven pieces. He thinks he sees something inside, but it's dark so he decides to use his sense of touch rather than sight.

Whatever it is, it's a little sharp. It pricks Boruto's hand, not even painful enough to make him flinch, and then he can't seem to find whatever pricked him. He picks up the loose pile of rock and brings it home with him, sneaking past his family in front of the house to take a quick visit to his room.

The rock doesn't look particularly special, and he can no longer see anything inside of it. When he stops handling the pieces of it and happens to glance at his right palm, he sees the mark.

He wakes up by hitting his forehead on the wall beside his bed. Dazed and annoyed first thing in the morning, Boruto sits up and rubs his forehead, checking the wall to make sure he didn't somehow hit it hard enough to leave a dent. Seeing that it's already light out, he sighs and resigns himself to the task of getting out of bed.

He hasn't spoken to anyone about the mark, even though he's had it for months now. He doesn't go out of his way to hide it-- never remembers to, really-- but it's just a little black diamond shape on his palm. It doesn't particularly jump out, and anyone who does see it probably just assumes he drew it for no reason, chalking it up to one of those odd things young kids like to do.

Boruto wishes that could be the oddest thing about him. Recently, he's been having a couple of lapses in memory, and it's been bothering him. Just the other day, he'd heard about a to-be transfer student to his class, heard that he was already getting picked on by a couple of third years who like to haze new students and make them join their stupid clique. Boruto remembers saying out loud "It's not even his first day yet! I'm gonna go talk to those jerks."

His next memory of that day is him arriving at home. Somehow, he didn't find it odd just then, but the next morning he thought he'd gone on autopilot and accidentally walked straight home. Since it was to be the transfer's first day, Boruto figured he would take care of things at school instead. When he got there, however, the known members of the clique pointedly avoided him and the transfer seemed oddly fond of him already. Mitsuki was his name, and he was eager to get a "proper introduction".

Mitsuki is still very sweet on him, which Boruto doesn't particularly understand, but he doesn't mind either. He figures those bullies caught wind of Boruto planning to have a word with them and turned out to be scaredy cats. That would explain why they seem so scared of him when he hasn't even so much as called out to them. It would also explain why Mitsuki constantly sticks so close to Boruto, for protection. Although, Mitsuki might also be a bit of a coward, because he just wants to go wherever Boruto goes even outside of school.

Well, he's a little different, but he's probably just being friendly. Shikadai is Boruto's best friend, but Mitsuki seems keen on reaching that level as well.

"Another one? Seriously?"

"I know, right? It's not fair."

Boruto happens to overhear two of the girls in his class chatting on the way back from lunch.

"If I see that guy, I'm gonna kick his ass."

"Wasabi, don't swear!"

Curious, Boruto listens for more details, but the conversation has devolved into Namida trying to calm her friend down. Boruto slides closer in his seat.

"Hey, what were you guys talking about?" he asks.

"Oh, there's this guy who's been going around stealing packed lunches recently," Wasabi answers, pausing to scowl. "He doesn't know how lucky he is that he's not in our class."

"A-and all the lunches he's taken have been from girls, too," Namida adds, clearly saddened.

"Gross. Let me guess, it's one of the older kids?" Boruto hazards.

"Gee, how'd you know?"

"Are the older students a problem here?" Mitsuki asks, having moved to stay next to Boruto, apparently. He hadn't noticed and jumps slightly at the question.

"Not all of them, but there's like... maybe ten of them that are just plain delinquents. The teachers can't figure out what to do about them, I guess," Boruto adds, more bitter than his tone implies. He's far from being a model student himself, but at least his troublemaking isn't malicious. He's not going around stealing lunches like some people.

Mr. Aburame calls for class to resume and their conversation is cut short. Boruto's attention has a hard time finding its way to the words being written on the blackboard, however.

"I'm gonna go find that guy and teach him a lesson," he mutters into folded arms.

Things get hazy after that.

* * *

The little idiot is looking all around the school grounds.

"Well? Where are you?" he calls out. "You said you'd cover lunch for a week, whoever you are!"

Yes, Boruto had homed in on this individual, had sent a note to be passed along to him. In it, he'd acted like a humble coward who simply hates the idea of conflict. A ploy to draw this person out.

"I don't have time for this. If you're not coming out, I'm going home!"

As the boy turns to walk home, he spots him under the growing shadow of a tree, hands hidden in his pockets and one eye open.

"Huh..? You look half asleep over there... Are you the guy who sent the note?" He walks closer. "Hey, you're that Boruto kid from that one troublemaking class! Heh, you've really been making a name for yourself recently. You've got my buddies all scared over nothing."

The child is slight, and evidently foolish.

"You know, I decided before I got here that I was gonna make you bring me lunch every day, but I'm reconsidering, 'cause I'm nice like that. Even though you're younger, I'm extending an official invitation to join our gang. What do you say, kid?"

"You are a nuisance, and a glutton."

The child does not take notice of the magic at work, does not look up to see the peaches hanging from the tree that had borne no fruit before today.

"What did you say?! Here I am trying to take mercy on you, too! Why don't you just make the smart decision for once?!"

He extends a foot backwards and kicks the tree, sending three peaches falling to the ground. The confusion shocks the child into a momentary silence.

"I can see your soul with this eye. I can see your fate." He crouches down and picks up the trio of fruit. "Some poisons will only fester in the shadows of your mind."

He takes a bite of one of the peaches.

"What... what's the big idea?! That's not a peach tree, so where did those come from?!"

"You could walk away from this on your feet. But you won't."

The child easily rises to his words, perceiving slights in plain facts. He snatches the peaches, eats all three of them in no time at all. The child attempts to speak, attempts to taunt him, but clutches his stomach as he lowers to his knees.

"When did I offer you a bite? Your greed is rewarded."

"What did you do..?!" the child pleads, grasping at the ground, desperately searching for any way to ease the pain.

"I've fulfilled a promise. You won't eat for a week."

The boy screams, overdramatic, as he is left alone in the dim light of the setting sun. The body, still with one eye closed, is walked to Boruto's home, and Momoshiki sleeps.


	2. Chapter 2

Boruto has had another lapse in memory, and this morning he finds out that the kid who'd been stealing lunches is in the hospital. He vaguely remembers some of that day. It was right before the weekend, and he'd completely forgotten about it until now, but he knows he intended to do something about that kid, knows he wrote a note to him. He doesn't remember what it said, nor what he did after that.

He doesn't talk to anyone about it, knows he'll be dismissed. The adults would never believe him. What is he supposed to say? "Bad things keep happening to people I think negatively of and I think it's my fault"? He'll be told to take a nap or something, and his memory lapses will be justified by his father's insistence that he inherited an attention deficiency from him.

So Boruto shoulders this newly discovered burden by himself. Shikadai catches on very quickly that something is up. Mitsuki doesn't know him well enough yet, but he has good instincts. He can't find the words to tell them what's been eating him, so he doesn't.

When he gets home, he locks himself in his room and starts doing research. He asks a search engine what it means if he has blank spots in his memory, during which he takes drastic actions. The results tell him he could have a second personality, but further research indicates that severe childhood trauma would be necessary for another personality to form to begin with. Boruto doesn't have any trauma to speak of, blessed with decent people around him with the possible exception of his annoying absent father.

... Well, he's not so bad, but Boruto wouldn't admit it out loud.

His search doesn't appear to yield any fruit, in the end. Boruto starts thinking he might be psychically harming his enemies, and that the amount of power it takes to do so costs him some of his memory. His feelings conflict, part of him grateful for being special and mysterious, while a kinder part of him makes him feel saddened and guilty. He thinks that maybe he should isolate himself until he figures out how to control his alleged powers.

This decision makes itself apparent very quickly. Boruto starts acting distant from the moment he wakes up the next morning, wondering if his little sister annoys him that he might wake up one day to discover she's suddenly afraid of him. That if his mother scolds him for something later and he starts feeling bitter that she might end up in the hospital too.

He tries to erase negative thoughts of his father from his mind, just in case-- tries to focus on the happy memories he has with him instead of the missed birthdays, the empty seat at the dinner table, the envy he feels when his friends talk about bonding with their own fathers.

"Alright, something is definitely wrong," Shikadai declares at lunch time. "You haven't said a word all day. You're not some imposter who just looks like Boruto, are you?"

"Huh? Why would I be an imposter? That's dumb. Maybe I just don't feel like talking today."

His tone of voice is normal for him, not betraying the swirling conflict of emotions in his head. He feels like he's putting up a facade, like he's somehow lying.

It takes him a while to register that Mitsuki hasn't said anything either. He thinks little of it, figures he just likes Boruto so much that he decided to copy him. Shikadai tries to pry at Boruto, but Inojin comes to drag him to lunch.

"I promise I'm fine, okay? I've just been feeling weird, I don't know," Boruto tells him just so he'll go away. He feels again like he is lying through his teeth.

He doesn't really touch his lunch. He notices Mitsuki doesn't have one and pushes it over to him.

"You shouldn't skip meals," he says, hypocritical. "Here, take mine."

"Doesn't that mean you'd be skipping a meal?"

"Ignore that part, okay? Just eat it."

Mitsuki opens the lunch box, taking out the napkin and chopsticks Boruto's mother had packed inside it. He separates a small amount of food onto the napkin and then slides the box back in front of Boruto.

"What's the big idea..." Boruto grumbles, glaring weakly over at Mitsuki.

"If I may repeat your own words... just eat it," he says with an insufferable smile.

Reluctantly, Boruto picks at his food, finding that his appetite returns to him the more he eats. The shared meal serves as a minor distraction from Boruto's current concerns.

"I'm curious..." Mitsuki starts after a few long minutes of silence. "Was it you?"

Goosebumps raise on Boruto's arms, hidden by his jacket.

"Huh? Was what me?" he feigns ignorance. "Are you asking if I packed my own lunch? My mom does it."

"The thief in the hospital."

Boruto knows he should respond quickly, that his pause and the avertion of his eyes as he clenches his jaw only spell out that he's guilty. All that comes out is a shaky sigh.

"This is gonna sound crazy, but I don't know. I think I might have done something and just not remembered," he finally admits. Mitsuki, strangely, does not act surprised.

"You don't remember?" he asks, thoughtful. "Do you remember when we first met?"

He wants to say "how could I not?" because it wasn't very long ago, but at the same time, his memory has been very unreliable recently.

"It was your first day of school here, right? You said, uh... something about a proper introduction..."

"Yes, that was the second time."

It dawns on Boruto that he should have found that suspicious to begin with.

"Then..! You remember something I don't?! Could you tell me what happened?" Boruto asks, turning bodily to Mitsuki.

As he says it, though, their classmates start flooding back into the classroom, signifying that lunch is almost over.

"I'll explain after class," Mitsuki promises.

That one sentence successfully turned this into the longest, most grueling school day of Boruto's life. It does end eventually, though, and Boruto drags Mitsuki along out behind the school where they can talk in private.

"So? What happened on the day we met?" he asks, eager since hours ago.

"It was by the park. Those older kids were talking to me, and you were very cold when you showed up. You said you were challenging the tallest one to a game."

"A... game?"

Of all things, Boruto wasn't expecting that.

"You told me my ears must be ringing from listening to them for so long, and you said silence is golden. I'm not sure what got into that guy, but when he ignored you and kept talking to me, he ended up very disoriented. He got louder and more confused until he and his friends got scared and left."

Boruto can't make heads or tails of Mitsuki's explanation, but it sounds very much like a psychic attack of some kind.

"I knew it..." he whispers to himself.

"After that, I tried to ask for your name, but you disappeared. It was an interesting first impression, and I was very surprised at what kind of person you turned out to be."

Boruto only half hears Mitsuki's words now. He gathers all of his mental strength to display a smile and force some cheer into his voice.

"Thanks for clearing that up," he says. "I was really wondering what happened. I'm gonna go home before it gets too late. See you tomorrow."

He doesn't follow through with what he says, though, absently wandering the emptiest paths he can find with eyes glazed over until the sun starts setting. When the stars first begin peeking out, Boruto looks up and feels like he could float right on up into space. The feeling is familiar, somehow, and he has to look down to make sure his feet are still on the ground.

It's not like the people who ended up hurt had good intentions, but he not only can't control his power, but he has no awareness of when he's even using it. He wonders if it's really alright for someone like him to be allowed to live unchecked.

"Boruto, why are you home so late?" his mother asks him when he walks through the front door. "We were getting worried. Himawari already went up to bed."

"I was... I was hanging out with a friend," Boruto lies, but the watery tremble in his voice gives him away utterly. Concerned, his mother bends down to hug him.

"Honey, what's wrong? You didn't get into a fight, did you?"

Hands coming up to clutch at his mother's shirt, tears start flowing and Boruto babbles an incompetent explanation of what's been on his mind. His mother misunderstands completely and assumes he's been causing trouble at school again and feels bad about it, but she tries her best to soothe him. She sits him down on the couch and rubs his back until he stops sniffling, tired eyes falling shut.

Boruto dreams of a father he doesn't remember, hair that isn't blond, a name that isn't his.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Boruto finds that he isn't so concerned about his alleged psychic powers anymore. He chalks it up with some embarrassment to just having needed a good cry for stress relief. His cheer when he walks into class is genuine this time.

"What, seriously? I guess you really were just having a bad day," Shikadai comments, back at his usual good-natured complaining. "Can't believe I bothered worrying about you."

"Heh, sounds like a you problem, Shikadai! Maybe you'll believe me next time!"

"Oh, shut up! You're the one who made yourself hard to believe!"

Boruto laughs, wondering how he could have possibly been so upset yesterday to begin with. What are the odds he's just been having a few strange coincidences happen instead of suddenly developing powers he can't control? He may have blown this whole situation out of proportion.

Come lunch time, Boruto sees Mitsuki taking some food from his own lunch box and placing it on a napkin. He slides the napkin in front of Boruto.

"What? I'm eating, alright!"

"Well, this is in return for sharing with me yesterday. I don't usually eat lunch, but I wanted to bring some to share with you."

"Come on, you don't need to do that..." Boruto says, though he appreciates the attention. Mitsuki smiles.

"I'm glad to see you're back to normal. You're really something special, aren't you?"

"Heh! I guess I'm just too strong to let negativity get the better of me for long!"

They both end up sharing their lunches, and the idea occurs to Boruto to take Mitsuki with him to his favorite fast food restaurant after school.

"What do you mean you've never eaten a burger?!" Boruto blanches as they're walking out of class together. "Did they not have any where you lived before?!"

"Hm... maybe. I never looked for any burger restaurants."

"You're gonna love it! Kaminari Burger always has these crazy new flavors too, and most of them are really good! That's the real reason why I like it so much."

"So you like strange flavors, then?"

"I guess you could say that. Hmm... well, "intense" is a better word for it. But I guess people were saying the apple burger they had a while ago was pretty weird and I liked that one. It's not my favorite, though."

The entire way to the restaurant, Boruto regales Mitsuki of all the interesting foods he's eaten, the vast majority of them being limited edition burgers. Mitsuki isn't able to get many words in, but he has this soft smile as he listens intently to Boruto. Something tells him he doesn't really mind.

The current special is a chili burger which Boruto quickly grows to love and Mitsuki barely touches. It's spicy and saucy and wonderful, and Boruto trades some of his fries for the rest of Mitsuki's burger.

"It definitely was an interesting mix of flavors," Mitsuki admits. "I don't think I really like spicy food."

"Hnh? You don't know what you're missing with those tastebuds," Boruto says, muffled slightly by the food still in his mouth.

"I like food that's served cold, usually," he says.

"Oh!"

His burger only mostly finished, Boruto wipes his hands off and runs back up to the counter to order a couple of soft serve ice cream cones. When he comes back, he hands one to Mitsuki.

"Cold like this, right?" he asks with a bright smile.

"I meant like soba noodles, actually," Mitsuki answers with a smile of his own, accepting the cone nonetheless.

"Oh, jeez, would you have preferred if I got you a salad?" Boruto jokes. Mitsuki's pleasantly polite little nod sends him into hysterics, almost dropping his ice cream in his laughing fit.

Boruto gets the last few bites of his burger down and they take the ice cream cones on the road with them, talking as they walk around town. Boruto has to inform Mitsuki that the cone is edible, and he seems rather fascinated by it.

He notices as they're walking by the park that the area is unusually empty. He barely spares it a thought, though, and takes Mitsuki over to a bench while he's engrossed in talking about his new favorite RPG.

"Huh? Hey!" a concerned adult shouts, running over to the pair. "Didn't you kids get the memo? We're doing construction work this week, you can't be over here right now! It's dangerous!"

"Oh, that makes sense. I was wondering why it was so--"

A muffled bang interrupts Boruto, and the construction worker's face pales as he flinches.

"No, not again..."

"Are you afraid of loud noises?" Mitsuki asks.

"No, no, that's not it... we're not supposed to even be using... agh, nevermind, you kids just need to go home, alright? It might be even more dangerous here than I thought."

Stiff and reluctant, though still speedy, the worker heads toward a nearby building that looks to be in disrepair. It's looked awful for a long time, but it's so big that nobody wanted to do anything about it due to risk of debris in such a normally populated area. Boruto only remembers that because he'd complained to his mother about the eyesore once and gotten that explanation in return.

What that worker said bothers him, though. When Mitsuki asks him what's wrong, he says as much.

"Hm... I wonder," Mitsuki hums, peculiar yellow eyes following the retreating worker closely. "Either way, he's right that it's dangerous. We probably shouldn't follow him."

"Something..."

Boruto had been trying to say that something doesn't seem right, but he begins to feel a little faint. Then, suddenly, his left eye flutters closed and his face looks peaceful like sleep.

"Boruto?"

Momoshiki ignores the child and heads in the direction of the dilapidated building. Perhaps the foreman is a trigger happy madman he can entertain himself with. Anyone with a red tinted fate is doomed to lose at Momoshiki's games.

When he enters the building, all sorts of humans are attempting to shoo him away. Only one of them is tinted red-- a short man with a remote in his hand.

"Why not let him stay and watch?" the foreman suggests. "I'm sure a kid like him would get a kick out of demolition work."

"Boss, please, it's dangerous!"

"Let the kid choose what he wants to do," the foreman says.

"But..."

Momoshiki walks forward unfazed, this human's punishment already coming to life in his head. Behavioral correction has always been a cruel game for his kind, but it's one Momoshiki takes a particular joy in.

"You're very much used to making your own choices without regarding anyone else, aren't you?" Momoshiki asks him.

"I'm the one in charge, so I get that luxury, yes. If you're trying to lecture me, save your breath, kid."

"Oh, not at all. Let's play a game instead."

Called forth by no mere coincidence, an out of place dove flies in through a broken window, landing on the foreman's shoulder.

"What the hell?!"

"Your goal is to get the dove back outside safely. If you make any sudden movements, it'll get scared and fly off," Momoshiki explains.

"It'll get back outside on its own, the damn thing. Go on!"

The foreman shrugs violently in an attempt to shoo the bird. Startled by the movement, the dove hovers above the foreman, leaving a gruesome hole where it had been perched.

"My... my shoulder?!"

The workers call out in concern at the foreman's missing shoulder, some of them taking the opportunity to run out of the building. The dove lands on the opposite shoulder, idly moving about to get comfortable.

"Get this demon off me!"

"You aren't playing the game," Momoshiki scolds. "It's a very simple objective. Surely even you can do it?"

The foreman swats at the bird, but finds that his hand goes straight through it. He stares at it, an easy fear displaying in his eyes, and then relents to the rules.

"I just... have to get outside with it, right?"

"Easy, no?" Momoshiki says.

The foreman takes a good few steps, and then the dove coos loudly, stopping him.

"What? What's going on?"

"It appears that the bird is uncomfortable."

"What do I care?! I only have to get this thing outside, not babysit it!"

Startled by the volume of his voice, the dove flutters up again, the shoulder it had rested on disappearing in that instant. This time, it lands on the foreman's head.

"N-no..."

"All you have to do is consider what's best for the bird," Momoshiki reminds him.

"G... get this thing some food or something!" he orders, but all of his workers have already fled. "Someone..."

"This is something you must do yourself."

"You... you're in control of this thing, aren't you?! You've made your last mistake, kid!"

The remote still in hand, the foreman triggers a detonation. The dove flies off from a pile of rubble.

"Boruto?"

The child had been waiting at the entrance-- the first human to see him twice. When Momoshiki looks at him, he sees glowing white, with a sliver of gold peeking out from behind.

"Like a moon taking the light from the sun..." Momoshiki muses aloud, the last vestiges of his control slipping away now that no immediate purpose is to be served.

Those eyes stay closed for a few minutes.

"If I'm like the moon... that would make you the sun, then," Mitsuki says. Boruto feels too ill to question it.

"Wanna go home..." he mumbles.

Mitsuki acts as a crutch for him until he's regained enough consciousness to walk home. In the middle of the night, Boruto finds himself staring up at the moon.


	4. Chapter 4

Boruto has been dreading today for a while now. Nothing special is happening, there's just a math test that counts for a large part of his grade. Now, Boruto isn't necessarily bad at math, but he _is_ bad at understanding the exact formulas his teacher wants him to use. He gets away fine with multiple choice questions, but he always gets points taken off whenever he's expected to show his work.

Long division was a vice when he was still being expected to use that, but one trouble that hasn't gone away is his inability to understand the whole carrying numbers thing. He just doesn't seem to break down the steps of equations the same way as most of his class.

Because he's dreading the day, he's a little late to class. Mr. Aburame gave up trying to scold Boruto for the little things like that quite a while ago, so he just gives him a look that somehow manages to be slightly disappointed even though his eyes are hidden. Boruto sticks his tongue out at him-- cheeky, not bratty.

When the death sentence for his grade is placed in front of him, Boruto instantly starts spacing out. He just stares at the paper, not processing any of the questions. Several times, he has to shake his head and force himself to focus, and every time, he only gets one question done.

He does show a little bit of his work beside some of the multiple choice questions, though he doesn't know if his way of reaching the answers is acceptable. They're little scrawlings that most often go unfinished, as Boruto doesn't need to write down the whole process once he figures out the answer.

At the bottom of the test, there are three questions that expect him to show his work. This is the part that'll kill him.

 _Ugh, I don't even remember how I'm supposed to do it 'cause the right way doesn't make sense,_ he thinks, feeling himself beginning to space out again.

To make matters worse, he starts feeling a little sleepy. Unable to focus, his blinking gets slower and slower until he's sitting there with his eyes closed, feeling like he could doze off at any moment.

His eyes ease open and Boruto furrows his brow, determined to focus on at least one question. He starts writing out his process for the equation, and his pencil stops once he realizes the answer. Then, and he isn't sure why, he scribbles out the process and moves his pencil to the right of it.

The movement of his hand feels strange, liquid somehow, as it writes out a process he was sure he didn't understand, reaching the same answer. Fascinated, Boruto moves onto the next question. The process is repeated: he finds the solution his own way, and then, seemingly of its own volition, his hand writes out the "correct" process beside his initial one.

The teacher calls for the class to set their pencils down before Boruto can get to the last question.

 _I must really be tired,_ Boruto figures, staring down at his hand. When he turns his palm up, he can see the diamond shape on it.

He yawns, finishing just as Mr. Aburame collects his test from him. Even though he didn't get to complete it, he's kind of proud that he managed to fluke his way through the process somehow. The only thing that confuses him is how it still doesn't make sense in his head.

He barely touches his food during lunch, opting instead to rest his head on his arms folded over the table and nap. He falls asleep quickly, and plunges into an odd dream. In it, he's kneeling in a huge pile of diamonds, and he's digging through it, searching for something. He doesn't know what he's looking for, but he knows he hasn't found it. As he digs deeper, the diamonds seem like they're getting warmer to the touch. He feels like he's so close to finding something.

Then, at Boruto's request, Mitsuki wakes him up. He'd asked him to do so once lunch was over.

"What a weird dream," he mumbles, leaning back to stretch in his chair.

"What did you dream about?" Mitsuki asks.

"Uh... I don't really know. I think I was digging for something?"

The dream already feels so far away, and it quickly becomes harder to comprehend as the seconds pass.

"Digging? Where were you digging? In the school courtyard?"

"It... wasn't really a place. I don't know," Boruto sighs. "I can't wait to go home and sleep."

"Huh? Is that your best Shikadai impression?" a voice higher than Mitsuki's asks. Boruto looks up from closing his half-empty lunch box to see Sarada.

"Nah, my best Shikadai impression is," and he suddenly begins imitating his voice, "man, my dad wants me to be good at shogi, what a drag..."

"Just make sure you don't fall asleep in class, Boruto," she says, passing by him now to return to her seat.

"Well, apparently I'm smarter when I'm tired... AH!" Boruto suddenly realizes, shooting up in his seat. "That's why Shikadai is like that! Ohhh, no wonder."

"Uh, why I'm like what?" Shikadai asks with a concerned look on his face, returning with Inojin and Chocho.

"Heheh, nothing. I just discovered the Nara family secret, is all."

"What, our secret of playing shogi and watching clouds or whatever?"

Class resumes, cutting off their chat. When it lets out, Boruto picks back up with Shikadai, pestering him to go to Kaminari Burger with him, but Mr. Aburame interrupts to ask Boruto to stay back for a moment.

"Uh-oh, what did you do this time?" Shikadai asks, half-joking. "I'll meet you there, okay?"

"Jeez, I didn't do anything!" Boruto calls after him over the noise of the rest of the class leaving.

"I wanted to talk to you about today's math test, Boruto. It looks like you're finally starting to get the hang of the formula," Mr. Aburame says.

"Huh? I guess... a little bit."

"I just wanted to let you know I thought you did a good job. It's always uplifting to see a student making good progress. I know you're thought of as a problem child, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't want to see you grow. See, when I was--"

"Okay, I'm gonna leave, teach! See ya!" Boruto calls as he runs out the classroom door. Mr. Aburame has a tendency to go on forever if you let him, after all.

He guesses he just has to hope he can consistently pull off that mini miracle from earlier.


	5. Chapter 5

"Weird dreams?"

Shikadai stops to think about it, staring up at the sky from their place atop the moving train.

"Um... I mean, sometimes," he says. "What, you're having them every night?"

"Well, not every night," Boruto says.

"Enough to be cause for concern though, huh?" Shikadai ascertains.

"I kinda feel like... I don't know, like I'm missing something. I'd say it's like these dreams are trying to tell me what it is, but... they sure are vague."

He rarely remembers the details of them, but he knows he's been waking up troubled a few times a week. He's tried more than once to hurry to his notebook and write down what happened, but he always either blanks out or writes down absolute gibberish.

Today, he somehow managed to retain some details of his last dream even though he didn't bother trying to write them down. There was a huge tree in the middle of absolutely nowhere, remembering nothing of the rest of the scenery. At the base of the tree were five skeletons sitting back against the trunk, motionless as one would expect. Every time Boruto blinked, the number of skeletons suddenly increased, popping soundlessly into existence only to lay on the ground and over top of one another, until there was one close enough that it reached out to grab Boruto by the ankle.

He'd woken up before it actually made contact, scared into consciousness as soon as it started reaching.

"Hey, I hear there are psychics and stuff that can interpret dreams..." Shikadai suggests, though he trails off a bit. "I mean, it's probably all phoney, but you could look into it. Or look it up on the internet, maybe?"

"Huh... I guess I could try looking it up."

"Just don't get scammed."

"I don't even have a credit card, who's gonna scam me?"

Shikadai laughs.

As the train slows, reaching its destination, the two of them discreetly hop down and off before any adults can catch them and whine about it being dangerous.

"We'll hang out again tomorrow, right? Figure out what's going on in your dreams," Shikadai says as his farewell.

"Yes to the first one, no promises to the second!" Boruto calls after him.

The minute he gets home, he rushes up to his room and hops onto Google. His initial search tells him he's either stressed out or something in his routine has changed. His second search, "dream about skeletons around a tree", doesn't yield very specific results.

Apparently, skeletons are meant to symbolize fear of failure and the uncertain. Boruto doesn't have any big tests or anything coming up, so he doesn't know what that's supposed to be about.

Then he thinks, _What if I'm scared of something that I don't know about yet..? Like, an instinctual thing..._

That would line up with his previous concerns of being psychic, he guesses. If something he doesn't even know about is stressing him out, that would apparently explain why he's been having strange dreams in general, without needing to pin down specific meanings for everything in the dreams.

Boruto is torn now between not wanting to sleep because the dreams tend to be unsettling, and looking forward to it because he's eager to see if having an inkling of what's going on changes anything.

When night does finally fall, he has a silent dream of white eyes and remembers none of it in the morning.


	6. Chapter 6

Shikadai isn't usually late like this. Boruto has been sitting at their usual meeting spot for half an hour already, just watching people pass by. He checks Kaminari Burger and the train station just in case, since those are their other main meeting spots, but he doesn't turn up. After one more quick visit to the first spot, Boruto heads to Shikadai's house.

His mother is the one who answers the door, seeing as Shikamaru is rarely home during the day.

"Boruto? What are you doing here?" she asks, peeking behind him and then taking a step outside to look around. "Shikadai isn't with you?"

"You mean he's not here? I was wondering if he overslept..."

"No, he left a couple of hours ago or so saying he had plans with you..."

Temari walks back inside, leaving the door open for Boruto. He tentatively steps inside and closes the door behind him, not bothering to take his shoes off yet. He's most likely about to bolt right back outside, anyway.

"That kid... I swear if he turns up fine and I got worked up over nothing..." she mutters, picking up her phone.

"Who are you calling?" Boruto asks. It's only a little over an hour after when they were supposed to meet, so calling the police now seems hasty.

"Shikamaru, just in case--" As she's answering him, Shikamaru evidently picks up the phone. "Hey, is Shikadai there with you, by any chance? ... No?"

She sighs and hangs up.

"Um, you don't think you should tell old man Shikamaru?"

"No point in making him worry. I'm just gonna leave a quick note for Shikadai to call me if he gets home. Help me look for him."

Uh-oh. If Temari is getting involved, poor Shikadai's gonna end up getting lectured until his ears fall off. Maybe Boruto should have looked a little harder before coming here.

* * *

"Your aim is pretty good, kid. You've really never played darts before?"

"It was--" Shikadai flinches as a dart thunks right next to his head, subduing himself as much as he's able. "It was a lucky first throw."

That lucky throw saved his life. Naoise, some foreign gang leader he'd never heard of until today, had made him a deal. If Shikadai could hit a bullseye in one throw, he'd spare his life. Shikadai didn't believe for a second that meant he'd be let go, but he put all his hopes into that throw nonetheless and managed to hit it somehow.

Since then, though, Naoise ordered Shikadai to stand against the wall with his head blocking the bullseye, right about where his forehead is. Every time Naoise throws a dart, Shikadai feels like he's about to die, but none of them have hit him yet. Even if Naoise doesn't intend to hit him, one wrong move by either of them could result in a lost eye.

The obvious sadism in forcing him to stand there to begin with isn't lost on Shikadai either, but it's not like he can afford to show his disdain. No, he needs to gather all the focus he can-- as difficult as it is like this-- and use it to figure out a way to talk himself out of this mess.

Jeez. If he survives this, he's never taking a back alley shortcut to dodge a crowd again.

* * *

Boruto hasn't been keeping track of how long he and Temari have been searching for Shikadai. Realistically, it's been less than an hour, but it already feels like forever of aimlessly running through the streets, popping into any store he knows Shikadai likes only to find nothing.

_I'm never gonna find him like this! Not without x-ray vision or..._

He doesn't get through the thought before tripping over his own two feet. His balance kicks in and he catches himself automatically before he can fall, but he feels so tired all of a sudden.

With eyes like Momoshiki's, of course it's easy to see through buildings. He sees several red fates, but he mercifully spares them for the moment. Right now, he's looking for mint green.

It's there, in the basement of a bar, and a red just so happens to be right next to it. One human tries to dissuade him from entering due to his host's age, but it goes ignored.

"Wha--?! Boruto?!"

The red turns to face him, calmly fascinated by the intrusion.

"Another kid, huh? Wait your turn, buddy. I'm almost done here."

The child, Shikadai, squeezes his eyes shut in a wince.

"Ah-ah! No flinching. You know the rules."

Momoshiki grabs the man's hand, poised to throw a dart.

"How would you like to play a game?" Momoshiki asks him.

"In case you hadn't noticed, I'm already in the middle of one... but I suppose you must be eager to save your friend, huh?"

"Boruto, no! Naoise's no joke, just go!"

"Calm down, kid. He's not getting out of here that easily."

Naoise drops the dart and rises from his seat.

"Name your game. Boruto, is it?"

Momoshiki doesn't correct him.

"You appear to have an affinity for throwing instruments at boards," he notes, taking in the five different dart boards on the wall, including the one Shikadai is positioned in front of. "Those little things are nothing, though."

Momoshiki grabs two of the darts and the punishment game begins, the darts transforming into knives in his hand. He tosses one to Naoise, who catches it less than gracefully in his surprise.

"Move, child."

Shikadai urgently looks to Naoise for approval. After a moment, Naoise indicates his head to the left, sending Shikadai running in that direction.

"The goal of the game is to get a higher score than your opponent. The bullseye is, of course, the highest score. The only trick is that only one round counts."

"Only one..?"

"As soon as one of us gets a lower score than the other, that person loses."

"And the punishment for losing?"

Momoshiki flashes the smallest grin.

"Victor's choice," he says.

Both aiming at different dart boards, the two of them throw their knives. They both land perfectly in the middle of the boards.

"Hey, another lucky kid," Naoise comments.

"Boruto, this is crazy! You can't be serious!"

The end conditions not met, the knives dissipate from the boards and rematerialize in Momoshiki's hands. He holds one out to Naoise and they repeat the process. Then again, and again. They both continue tying with the highest possible score.

It's around now that Naoise must be realizing winning is impossible for either of them. The only way to win would be for the opponent to screw up, and Momoshiki very clearly has magic in play. This means that the game can't end until Naoise happens to miss the bullseye.

"This... isn't getting anywhere," he says, looking suspiciously over at Momoshiki. If he had normal eyes, he would be none the wiser, seeing as how he'd purposefully placed Naoise in his blind spot, the eye that he can't control.

"Boruto!"

Naoise unleashes his knife not in the direction of the dart board, but instead at Momoshiki. His attempt at cheating is punished immediately, their places swapped before the knife makes contact with Momoshiki's throat.

"... I suppose you are taller than this body," Momoshiki comments, seeing how the knife only hit Naoise between the ribs and not in the throat. "No matter. It'll do as a punishment."

"What the hell are you..?!" Naoise tries to ask, hand hesitating over the knife in his ribs.

"More importantly..."

Momoshiki turns his attention to Shikadai, who flinches when he starts walking over.

"You can wake up now," he says. While Shikadai is confused, he strikes the child unconscious. Hopefully, that'll be enough to keep him from asking questions.

"Boss, what happened?!"

More pests come running down the stairs. Momoshiki slings one of Shikadai's arms around his shoulders and hoists him up, sharing a glance with Naoise.

"Just... let the little freak go," he grits out through his teeth, "and get me a doctor."

The magic of the game wears off, and the dart falls out from between Naoise's ribs. This appears to shock the lot of them, and Momoshiki slips through the growing crowd.

Momoshiki takes Shikadai all the way to the meeting spot, the circle of concrete around a tree. He lays Shikadai down across it, and then mimics him on the other side.

Boruto wakes up immediately, sitting up in a daze.

"How did I... right, I guess I was gonna check here again next..? But he's not... huh?!"

Boruto jumps to his feet, pointing offendedly at Shikadai, asleep by the tree.

"Your mom and I went through all that trouble looking for you! Wake up, lazybones!"

"Boruto..?"

Shikadai looks tired, horrified, and then confused.

"Wait, what..."

"Seriously, I couldn't find you anywhere and then it turns out you were just sleeping here! I should have guessed! Jeez, and I got your mom all worried for nothing!"

"My m--"

As if summoned by Boruto mentioning her, Temari spots the two of them and starts running at Shikadai, not looking at all like a relieved mother.

"Oh give me a break... first, all that talk of weird dreams gave me one too, and now this? I'm tired..."

"You just woke up, lazy!"

Even though he was annoyed at first, Boruto quickly starts to feel sorry for Shikadai as he's pulled away by the ear, his mother giving him a real talking-to the whole way home.

Odd how he couldn't find him before that, though. Boruto must have fallen asleep, too, he guesses.


	7. Chapter 7

Looking up at the menu for Kaminari Burger a decent distance away from the counter, Boruto draws a blank. There isn't anything new or limited right now, and for some inexplicable reason... he really doesn't feel like eating a burger. He doesn't want anything hot or salty, in fact.

So, when he gets to the counter, he orders a salad for the first time in his life. Most of the cashiers here know him because he drops by so often, and the guy behind the register looks surprised to hear a different order from him.

When Boruto sits down with it, he expects to instantly regret his decision. He tried a bite of his mom's salad once a few years ago and hated it, but the first bite of this one surprises him. Maybe he's matured a little since then, because he can tolerate it now.

"Boruto..? Are you okay?"

When Boruto looks up from his food, Sarada is standing next to him with an empty tray.

"I'm fine, why?" he asks absently.

"You ordered a _salad_. At Kaminari Burger. I don't think I've ever seen you eat a vegetable before!"

"So what, I felt like having a salad, leave me alone! Besides, there's vegetables on the burgers," he adds as an afterthought. Sarada laughs.

"I bet your mom said you have to eat more greens," she teases.

"Did not!"

"She so did!"

Sarada goes and drops off her tray before coming back to sit across from Boruto.

"Anyway, did you hear? They're gonna be holding a local tournament for that card game you play in a few weeks."

"Wait, seriously?!"

"Yeah, I heard Inojin talking about it earlier. Are you gonna compete?"

Boruto thinks about it. His deck is mostly as good as it's going to get, aside from one small issue. He doesn't have as many copies as some of his cards as he'd like, and currently has a few runs of a card he'd prefer not to use as a placeholder. Boruto prefers to pull cards himself rather than buying them online, but he might cave and get those last three cards he needs if they're cheap.

"Hmm..." he hums, and then sucks in a breath. "Maybe... I have a pretty unconventional deck, and I _would_ like to show it off... but I'd feel pretty bad if I wiped the floor with the competition."

"Oh, shut up!" Sarada laughs. "I think Shikadai is competing too, so don't go brazenly insulting everyone in the tournament like that."

"Hey, it's not an insult! I'm just that good!" Boruto says, but she has a point. It's just a local tournament, not anything that high level players from around the world would travel to compete in, but the village has its fair share of good players.

"Honestly. Boys get so worked up over dumb stuff," Sarada says as if she's not the same way.

"It's not just boys! Wasabi plays too!" Boruto reminds her.

"Wasabi? You mean the biggest tomboy in our class? Shocker!"

"Hey! ... I mean, you kinda have a point, but still! She counts!"

"Whatever. Eat your salad!" she taunts as she gets up to leave.

"Maybe I will!"

Boruto tries to keep a straight face, but he ends up laughing once Sarada is out of earshot.

"Seriously, why did I order this thing..." he laughs to himself.

On the way home, Boruto decides to test his luck before he gives in and buys the cards online. He needs two copies of one card and one of another in order to have his ideal deck. He steps into the game shop, planning to buy three booster packs.

Standing in the section Boruto needs to get to is a kid he doesn't recognize. He's tall and looks a bit older, and for some reason his undercut isn't the same color as the rest of his hair. Boruto feels strangely magnetized to him, maybe because they clearly share an interest based on the pack in the kid's hand, but the way he turns and looks at him is cold. It makes Boruto furrow his brow and frown slightly.

"What are you looking at?" the kid asks, aloof.

"What are _you_ looking at?" Boruto shoots back.

They make no further conversation and Boruto feels some relief when they're no longer within sight of each other.

Luckily, his booster packs bring his mood back up. He manages to pull a few copies of the card he needed two of, but he still doesn't have the last card he needs. Before he checks online, he decides to go see if Shikadai pulled the card and wants to trade. He just has to stop at home first so he can bring his collection.

* * *

Shikadai should be able to disregard the strange occurrence from the other day as a dream, but he just can't. The timeline doesn't add up. He doesn't remember having made it to the meeting spot, and he doesn't understand how he could have napped there for so long. Boruto had apparently gone there around the time they were supposed to meet, so if Shikadai were sleeping there, why would he not have seen him?

If something held him up and he got there later, just so happening to unintentionally evade Boruto while he was at it, then what kept him? He perfectly remembers his entire day, but it's been presented to him as a dream.

He doesn't want to believe Boruto lied to him on purpose, nor does he understand any of what he witnessed at the bar. Boruto's personality had completely changed, he treated Shikadai like a stranger, and there's no explanation for the weird game he played with Naoise other than that he used magic.

"Shikadai? How strange. Is there a specific reason you're visiting me?"

He's standing in front of Mitsuki's front door.

"Hey, sorry to show up so suddenly. It's just that you spend a lot of time with Boruto recently and, uh..." Shikadai scratches the back of his head, knowing the whole situation will sound embarrassingly ridiculous. "Basically, has Boruto been acting strange at all to you? Kind of like he's... someone else sometimes?"

Mitsuki steps aside to allow Shikadai to walk through the door. His apartment is strangely sparse.

"Can you give me an example?" he asks.

"... Might wanna sit down," Shikadai suggests, eyeing the bed against the wall seeing as there are no other seats in the room.

Mitsuki calmly listens to Shikadai's explanation with no emotion on his face. It's not unusual behavior for him, but it's strange given the circumstances.

"You don't seem surprised..." Shikadai tentatively points out once he's done explaining.

"No. I've seen what you're talking about twice now, but I wasn't sure what to do about it," he admits. "The first time, I think he may have deafened someone. The second time... well, technically the person killed himself, but--"

"Hold on, what?! Someone died?!"

"It was a construction worker who was using explosives. Boruto seemed to be trying to teach him to take others into consideration when making choices like that, but he refused to change and tried to blow the building up hoping it would kill Boruto. It just made a beam fall on himself, though."

Shikadai breathes a hesitant sigh that still manages to be composed almost entirely of relief. That sounds significantly less like murder.

"And the first time? With the deafening?" he asks.

"Hm... I wonder?" Mitsuki contemplates. "An older kid kept trying to recruit me into his gang. Boruto tried to get him to stop talking to me, and I think because he disregarded him, he started to have trouble hearing."

"Uh... so because he refused to stop bothering you, he stopped being able to hear himself..?"

Shikadai thinks back to Naoise. The game Boruto played with him was a cruel irony, and that appears to be his M.O. now that he has more incidents for reference.

"It's also possible that Boruto was behind that kid who was stealing lunches being hospitalized that one time," Mitsuki mentions. "I was curious, so I'd visited the hospital to ask why he was there. He seemed scared to talk to me, but his mother was there with him and said it was a really bad case of food poisoning."

Food poisoning after stealing lunches at school?

"That makes some sense. But... still. How does he..."

"He doesn't remember," Mitsuki says, apparently sure of it. "We talked a bit about him having blank spots in his memory, and he didn't remember the first time we met. I think it's because he didn't see me while he was himself that day."

"So there's another Boruto..? Some sort of vigilante? It's like a comic book..."

Shikadai feels a strange urge to burst into hysterics, but he resists it. Instead, he tries to focus on how he can make Boruto remember.

"... Do you happen to remember where that construction worker died?"

* * *

"Shikadai, Boruto is here to play cards with you!" Temari calls down the hallway.

"Actually, I'm just here to see if you want to trade!" Boruto corrects.

Shikadai comes out to greet him.

"Oh, hey, Boruto. Why don't we do that in my room?"

Shikadai seems a little distracted as he leads Boruto inside.

"So, anyway, I just need one more copy of a card I've already got and my deck will be complete! Sarada said there's a local tournament soon, so I wanted to have my best possible deck to compete with."

"Oh. Yeah, let's see if I have it first," he says, grabbing his binder from where it rests against his nightstand. They both sit on his bed as he leafs through the pages.

"It's Felax. He looks like this."

Boruto holds up a copy of the card for reference as Shikadai scans his collection. Shikadai has no use for a card like that unless he feels like building a deck like Boruto's, so if he happened to pull it, it'd be somewhere in his "trade pile".

"Sorry, I don't have that one... I don't have any grade 1s from that clan, actually. That's kinda weird."

"Aw man, after I brought all my cards..."

Shikadai scratches his head and sets his binder on the bed.

"Actually, while you're here, there's something I wanted to talk to you about," he says.

"Huh? Like what?"

"So, I've been talking to Mitsuki..." He stops and stares at Boruto like he's waiting for him to take issue with that. "Turns out there's this haunted building he's been thinking about investigating."

"What?! Seriously?!" Boruto gasps, genuinely shocked. "Is Mitsuki secretly some kind of ghost hunter?! That doesn't seem like him at all!"

"Well, I mean... I doubt it's a regular thing," Shikadai laughs. "I was gonna go with him just so he's not out in the middle of the night all alone. Wanna come with?"

"Sure! It sounds cool!"

"Good, because I was kind of nervous about there only being two of us. Three is a little safer. We're gonna go on Saturday night, okay? We'll meet at the park at 9 PM. Most people should be cleared out by then."

"Okay! Just make sure none of our parents find out," Boruto figures, lowering his voice a little.

"Obviously! My mom would kill me!"

They laugh together and soon go back to comparing cards. They do end up trading a few, but only because Boruto likes the look of some of them. He tends to pull Genesis cards and happens to have a good deal of them, but he has no interest in building a deck of them. He keeps them in case he changes his mind, since it's the clan he has the most cards belonging to aside from his main clan. The rest of the cards he pulls are mostly for trading unless they look cool.

As he's leaving, Shikadai reminds him of their plans.

"Saturday at nine, okay?" he whispers, his mother in just the next room over.

"Jeez, I won't forget! I'll write it down just in case, okay?" Boruto promises on his way out.

He doesn't really believe in ghosts or anything, but there must be something to this place if Mitsuki of all people is interested in it. Boruto finds himself really looking forward to this weekend.


	8. Chapter 8

When Saturday comes, the day passes by slow as can be. Boruto finds himself staring every clock in the house down, just waiting for night to fall. Nothing seems to pass the time quick enough.

Since he has hours to kill, Boruto spends the day teaching Himawari how to play a 2D fighting game. She picks the girl with the most elaborate outfit to play as and refuses to try any other characters, but she somehow learns the complicated combo inputs very quickly. By their third match, Boruto finds himself completely on the defensive. By the fifth, he realizes with some embarrassment that he doesn't have a chance to win against her anymore.

"Jeez, I bet you'd beat Inojin at this game too!" Boruto says as he puts the controllers away, giving up for the day.

"Inojin plays this game?"

"Yeah, he introduced me to it! He's really good at button mashing in general. He's, like, insanely quick."

When Boruto looks out the window, he notices that the sky is beginning to dim. Nightfall still feels forever away, but he's getting there.

When his mother calls the two of them over for dinner, Boruto isn't surprised to see no plate at his father's seat. He should be used to it by now, but still he can't help but sneer at it.

"Hey mom, do you believe in ghosts?" he asks, seeking to distract himself so his mood doesn't plummet.

"Oh, where's this coming from? Hm..." She takes a moment to compose her answer, and Boruto starts thinking she's looking for a polite way to say no. "I think it would be nice to see departed loved ones again..."

She looks now at the nearby photo of her and uncle Neji.

"Most ghost theories are pretty unpleasant, though... I'd prefer to think that when people pass away, they go to a better place and find peace. I don't like the idea of sorrowful spirits who roam the Earth, forgetting who they are..."

"Huh? Jeez, mom, what kind of ghost stories do you listen to? Why would they forget who they are?"

"Oh, it's just... um, age, I guess? I don't remember where I got that idea," she laughs nervously.

"I think it'd be cool if there was like, a parallel ghost world that sometimes merges with ours and lets ghosts through!"

"I don't want ghosts to get through..." Himawari whines quietly, sinking in her chair.

"Well, it doesn't have to be a bad thing..! Maybe you could make friends with them," their mother suggests, attempting to cheer her up.

"Ghosts can't touch stuff, though... maybe they wouldn't be very good friends."

"Ghosts can totally touch stuff! They can possess electronics and furniture!"

"Boruto, don't say that! That's only in movies, Himawari, it's alright."

Himawari doesn't seem convinced, and opts to hide under the table.

After dinner, Boruto spends the remaining few hours making absolutely sure he's ready to go. He decides to leave at 8:30, unable to wait any longer to sneak out of the house. He dodges his mother and closes the front door behind him as quietly as he can.

On the way to the park, Boruto happens to spot Sarada walking with a plastic bag.

"Huh? What are you doing out this late?" he walks over to ask her.

"Picking up some tylenol for my mom. We didn't realize we were out... What about you? You'd better not be causing trouble," she warns, turning it around on him.

"Who, me? I would never! ... Anyway, I've gotta go home, it's getting pretty late! See ya!"

Boruto runs off before she can question him any further.

At school, he had prompted Shikadai and Mitsuki for more information about where they were going. Shikadai said that he figured people were just being superstitious about the dilapidated building near the park because of how it looks, but then he heard someone died in a construction accident there.

For being the one who apparently came up with the idea of investigating it to begin with, Mitsuki seemed oddly ambivalent. He mostly just nodded along with whatever Shikadai said-- but then again, Mitsuki is Mitsuki.

When the broken down building finally comes into view, the late hour starts getting to Boruto. Despite his excitement, his eyelids start to get heavy. He slaps his cheeks and runs the rest of the way to the building, willing himself to fill with energy.

"Oh, hey," Shikadai greets him with an arm up. "You're just in time. Can you believe Mitsuki was waiting here for an hour by himself?"

"Huh?! Mitsuki, come on! I mean, I couldn't wait either, but..."

"It's okay, it's not that chilly out," Mitsuki says with an oblivious smile.

"Anyway, we haven't gone inside yet. Let's--"

"What kind of gear do we have?" Boruto asks, excited to see what equipment Mitsuki must have brought.

"Gear? Uh, I brought a flashlight," Shikadai says, holding it up.

"Not you! Mitsuki is a ghost hunter, right?"

"Hm... I wonder?" is Mitsuki's typical answer.

"Oh, come on... You hunt ghosts but don't even bring anything special? Well, I guess that stuff costs money..."

"Look, people saying this place is haunted didn't have any fancy equipment. If it really is, we should be able to prove it barehanded," Shikadai reasons. "Let's head inside already, Mitsuki's totally wrong about it not being cold out here."

As soon as Boruto passes the threshold of the entryway, maybe it's his imagination, but he feels overwhelmed by some sort of unsettling energy. He's probably buying too far into this ghost thing, or maybe he's just tired.

 _Liabilities...?_ he finds himself thinking, and he doesn't know why.

"So?" Mitsuki prompts him once they're standing in front of a fallen beam, a pile of debris. "Do you feel anything, Boruto?"

He knows Mitsuki is talking to him, but it's somehow difficult to register. It takes a long moment for him to place his attention on Mitsuki.

"Um... yeah, actually. It's weird... I don't know how to describe it," he says unhelpfully, surely just sounding superstitious.

"Boruto, could you try closing just your left eye?" Mitsuki asks him.

Confused, Boruto winks as asked, keeping that eye shut for a moment.

"Alright, what are you idiots up to?"

"Sarada?! Why are you here?"

"I saw Boruto acting all suspicious, so I had to come see what was up. Three of you? Really? You aren't causing any trouble, right?"

The room is engulfed in an unnatural darkness, none of the children able to see any longer.

"Three witnesses is too many. Today, I think the number should become zero," Momoshiki decides.

"What's happening?! Why is it so dark all of a sudden?"

"Boruto, that's not really you, is it?" Shikadai asks from somewhere to his left.

"What human child would be capable of shadow magic?" is his answer.

"Shadow magic?! Guys, stop playing around!" Sarada insists, sounding too stressed already to be truly commanding.

"Boruto, are you about to play a game?" Mitsuki asks; always the calm one, the strangely unperturbed.

"The new witness is first."

Her fate is not red, but Momoshiki will win regardless. The shadows open up, and he and Sarada can see only each other.

"Here are the rules of the game. Think of any sound that can be directly associated with something tangible. If I incorrectly identify the noise, it will manifest on my side," he explains. "Of course, we'll be taking this in turns."

"What are you talking--"

"Sarada, just believe me when I say it's real, okay? Think of this as a bad dream. You just have to play along as best you can!" Shikadai tries to advise, but the stress is obvious in his voice as well. Momoshiki predicts he will soon be surrounded by crying children.

"Maybe if Sarada wins this game, Boruto will go back to normal?" Mitsuki suggests.

It's true that the loser of a punishment game must accept a punishment, as the name directly indicates. Momoshiki is pushing it this time, creating this game based on Sarada being too nosy, which is not a great enough sin to work with. Momoshiki's own silent stake, however, is possessing a body not his own without permission. If he were to lose to anyone with knowledge about punishment games, he could very well be banished from Boruto's body.

It's a good thing humans aren't even aware of magic.

"If you won't make the first move, I will."

Only the two of them hear the rattling, as it'd be annoying and an unfair advantage if the other children were shouting out answers.

"I... I don't know! Boruto, I don't want to play this game!"

She screams when the rattlesnake appears at her feet, instantly jumping back and keeping her distance from it.

"Sarada, what happened?! You need to calm down and just play along, like I said!"

Sarada takes a moment to accept the situation, to steady her breathing a tad.

"Like a bad dream, right..? Okay..."

Metal grinds against metal.

"Knives," Momoshiki correctly guesses, feeling them peter out before they can materialize. "Don't make it too easy."

A faint rumbling and whirring fills the room in sound alone, and Sarada struggles to figure out what it is.

"Is-- is that a truck?!" she collects as it gains momentum. It loses its energy and fails to materialize at the last moment.

"Take a deep breath, Sarada. Try to focus," Mitsuki suggests. Momoshiki would be interested to play a punishment game with him next, but he has little to punish. His lack of empathy, perhaps? Momoshiki can work with that.

Either way, Sarada is his opponent at this moment. She has a hand up to her chest, trying to keep herself calm so her mind can operate easier.

The noise he hears surprises him-- a sharp, mechanical roar that he doesn't immediately recognize.

"Chainsaw," he realizes before it's too late, pulling the name for it from Boruto's memory. "You have a fascination with weapons, it seems. Do you wish to harm an innocent child?"

It would be easier to manipulate the other two children, seeing how close they are to Boruto. Sarada sees him as little more than a classmate, however. Something like a coworker.

"What's wrong? Getting scared?" she somehow finds it in herself to taunt. She's shaking-- from adrenaline at the very least-- but she has this odd little smirk on her face.

What Momoshiki imagines next results only in the vague sound of a wall opening up. Sarada runs out of time while trying to listen for what it could be, and finds that a solid wall of spikes has pushed in from behind her, preventing her from backing away any further from the snake. It lies about twenty feet away, still agitated. Seeing her trapped like this, it could take any opportunity to pursue her.

"The time limit is only six seconds?" Sarada ascertains. Momoshiki is surprised she has the focus to figure something like that out right now.

"And the time limit to take a turn is sixty," he informs her. "Your move."

"Sarada, what happened? You didn't make a guess that time, are you alright?"

Shikadai's attempted guidance is grating on Momoshiki.

"I'm fine, Shikadai. I think I'm getting the hang of this," she claims, despite having failed to materialize anything yet.

Momoshiki hears echoing call of a whale next. It fades away when he calls it out. He retaliates with a mechanical roar not too dissimilar from Sarada's earlier attempt.

"Uh... w-wood chipper," Sarada identifies, her trembling renewed and relief plainly visible when nothing appears.

Momoshiki is surprised to hear the same noise as earlier. Perhaps she heard the wood chipper and was reminded of a chainsaw, forgetting she'd already tried that one?

"Not a chainsaw again," Momoshiki says.

Imagine his confusion when a large bird materializes directly in front of him, talons already poised to scratch at his face. He puts an arm up just in time, the bird clawing away at the sleeve of Boruto's jacket.

"Birds are capable of imitating all sorts of noises!" Sarada tells him.

The damned thing serves as quite a distraction, too. When Momoshiki realizes he's running out of time for his turn, what sounds next is a bird call, as he's too occupied by the one in front of him.

"What's wrong, can't think of anything but birds now?" Sarada taunts him, a nervous laugh in her voice.

"That's en--"

What is his left eye doing open..?

"Enough. That's enough."

His mouth moved, but it wasn't Momoshiki saying it. He freezes, realizing his host has now been made aware of him.

The punishment game dissolves, both animals and the wall dissipating into nothing and the other two children coming back into view. The fact that Boruto could end the game just like that astounds him. He wasn't even conscious for all the games Momoshiki has played in his body!

"Go back to sleep," Momoshiki commands through gritted teeth.

"No, you sleep. I'm not just gonna let you stand here and try to hurt my friends!"

The child has an obnoxiously strong spirit, which is exactly why it was important for Momoshiki to remain undiscovered. The body begins to go numb for him as Boruto regains control. With just one scowl, Momoshiki is forced back into hiding.

Sarada and Boruto fall at the same time, for different reasons. The stress and sudden relief of it are taking a toll on Sarada, and she sits as the last of the adrenaline shakes out. Boruto, however, looks defeated on his knees, head in his hands.

"I... was right... and so, so wrong at the same time..."

He hears two sets of footsteps, and he knows Shikadai and Mitsuki are beside him.

"We thought bringing you here might bring back memories of... that other you," Shikadai says. "Both Mitsuki and I already knew and accepted the risks of confronting that thing, but I never thought Sarada would show up..."

"I think it's a good thing she did. You really saved us," Mitsuki says, addressing Sarada.

"You guys have a lot of explaining to do," she says, exhausted.

"To me, too..." Boruto adds. "If you guys know anything that I might not have been remembering... please, tell me."

The night is long, and none of them go home to finally sleep until 3 AM. They walk each other home, with Boruto being the first to get dropped off. He knows he can't be trusted to walk home alone anymore.

As he lies down, he stares at the mark on his hand, assigning new meaning to it. With everything Shikadai and Mitsuki told him, he knows now that he has to figure out a way to get rid of this mark. Until then, all he can do is fight the being possessing him to the best of his abilities.


	9. Chapter 9

It's been two weeks without any apparent incidents. Mitsuki rarely leaves Boruto's side anymore, an arrangement which he seems more than pleased by. At least he doesn't feel like Boruto is an imposition.

Boruto spends a lot of time in front of the bathroom mirror, attempting to talk to the entity possessing him. Either he isn't doing it right, or it can hear him and simply refuses to acknowledge him. It's frustrating, but at least it's under control for now.

Right now, he needs to focus on getting back to feeling like he's normal. The more he frets about the being he shares a body with, the more he feels like he's being robbed of his time, of his life.

He hadn't been completely certain before, but his unsubtle craving for a distraction combined with the fact that he finally pulled the last card he needed decided for him: Boruto will be competing in that local tournament after all. At the very least, he knows he has Shikadai and Inojin as competition, and he knows Iwabe is pretty serious about the game, so he expects to see him there as well. Other than that, he isn't sure what to expect.

"... Heh. And that's game," Shikadai declares as his turn starts.

"What are you talking about? I can survive."

Although, he'd have to get pretty lucky, considering how the game has been going. Not only that, but Shikadai always turns out to be right when he declares that the game is over, even though there can be so many uncertain factors.

After just a couple of moves, Boruto realizes this is the final turn after all.

"Maybe I should practice against a better matchup..." Boruto half-complains, seeing as he doesn't win against Shikadai very often.

"Come on, practicing against a bad matchup is good for finding weaknesses in your deck."

"We've fought so many times that I know all my weaknesses, though!"

Shikadai laughs. Then, he places a finger on Felax, the last card Boruto had been trying to complete a set of.

"You need to take better advantage of this card. It's got a useful ability, but you usually delegate it to the back, and then it gets pretty much wasted to pay a cost... Against decks that try to clear or paralyze your field, you should be returning stuff to your hand as often as possible."

"I get it, it's just tough to know when to use it, you know..."

"Well, you'd better figure it out before the tournament," Shikadai warns him. "It's not gonna be best two out of three or anything. It'd be pretty embarrassing if you lost in the first round."

"Hey, you're acting like I suck at this game!"

"I'm just telling it like it is!"

They laugh together until they decide they're done practicing for the day. Shikadai packs up his cards and sets off, seeing as it's almost dinner time.

On his way out, he steps back inside to call upstairs to Boruto.

"Hey, Mitsuki's here!" he tells him before continuing to leave.

Boruto likes Mitsuki-- really, he does-- but he's started to see him as sort of a babysitter at best, or perhaps a parole officer at worst. He tries hard not to, because he knows Mitsuki isn't like that, that he's just trying to help Boruto, but it's still a touchy and frustrating situation.

As soon as Mitsuki walks into view, Boruto sees a tiny surprise.

"Oh, you brought Mikazuki this time!" he proclaims, running out into the hallway to greet the tiny cat. "He can run around in my room, we just have to close the door."

Mitsuki sets Mikazuki down on the floor, who quickly sees about getting into a fight with a crumpled up paper under Boruto's desk.

"Shikadai and I are trying to come up with a solution for your problem," Mitsuki starts. "So far, we haven't thought of anything."

Boruto sighs, somewhere between disappointed and resigned.

"I mean, if Shikadai's on the case, he'll probably come up with a miracle... eventually..." he says, trying to be optimistic. It's not as if this is an easy problem to solve.

The two of them watch Mikazuki bound around the room, evidently tiring himself out by the way he lays down next to Boruto's bed after a few minutes.

"What if you became friends with it?" Mitsuki asks.

"With Mikazuki? I like to think we're already friends."

He reaches down and pets Mikazuki's ear with his index finger, watching it flick around in response before Mikazuki jerks his head back and meows at Boruto.

"No, with the spirit."

"Are we calling it a spirit now?" Boruto asks, unamused. "That thing hurts people. It tried to kill Sarada. I don't think it's exactly friendly."

"Just an idea. I was thinking about what happened with Iwabe at school, is all. He was really hostile until he felt like he had friends in class."

Mitsuki... actually has a point. It's not like Boruto is ready to write the "spirit"'s behavior off as a product of loneliness or anything like that, but it's true that Iwabe had a bad attitude until he was reached out to. Now, Boruto considers him a valued friend...

The same couldn't possibly happen with the spirit, could it..?

"I guess... if you have a roommate, you've got no choice but to try to get along with them," Boruto surmises, still idly playing with Mikazuki. He's got his tiny claws wrapped around Boruto's index finger, pretending to bite the end of it.

"Have you tried talking to it?" Mitsuki asks. Boruto scoffs.

"I try every day. I try to talk to it inside my mind, I talk out loud to myself like a doofus... I even have this note here," he remembers, pausing to grab it from his nightstand. "I wrote "talk to me" on it and I always make sure to leave a pencil next to it, hoping it might write something while I'm asleep. It just isn't having it."

"Hm... maybe it doesn't have enough power to communicate with you yet?"

"I don't think that's it..."

He folds the note back up and sets it down. Sometimes his mother has to come wake him up so he doesn't oversleep, and it'd be difficult to explain the note if she saw it. It's best to give the appearance of it being blank.

"Well, hopefully it'll come around. We'll be here to help you. Sarada, too."

"Sarada? But..."

It's no secret that Boruto has been avoiding her. He figured it was better that way, that she would be terrified of him and hate him now. It'd make matters even worse if the spirit decided to hold a grudge against her. It's not a spirit, anyway.

... Wait, what makes him think that?

"Are you going anywhere today?"

Boruto takes a moment to realize Mitsuki asked him a question.

"Oh, uh... no, I think I'll stay home," he says. "Let's go out tomorrow, though."

"Okay, I'm going to take Mikazuki home, then."

He picks Mikazuki up and holds him in front of Boruto, moving his paw with his hand to make it look like he's waving goodbye. Boruto laughs and rubs the sides of Mikazuki's face.

"See ya, buddy! Tell Mitsuki to give you some treats when you guys get home!"

"The vet said he can only have one every few days, his stomach is sensitive."

"So? That shouldn't stop him from demanding treats."

"Hm..."

Mikazuki meows loudly as if in concurrence with Boruto.

"Oh. It looks like you're right," he says, switching positions to cradle Mikazuki.

"Now yell at him all the way home, Mikazuki!"

"I think you might be a bad influence on cats specifically."

Even if he feels like complaining, he says it with a warm smile on his face. There's something about the way he looks at Boruto that makes him not worry at all about being a burden to him.

Of course, a lack of object permanence can exist when it comes to feelings, too. It's not as soon as Mitsuki leaves, but by the evening, Boruto has practically forgotten how Mitsuki actually acts around him, pessimism taking over the image of him in his mind.

"Mitsuki's a really good friend," Boruto says to himself, tone sadder than it should be. "I have... a lot of friends that are better than I deserve."

It's while Boruto is getting ready for bed that he remembers the note. He stares at it, contemplating for a minute or two, and then he picks up the pencil and writes: "what food do you want tomorrow?"

He knows better than to expect an answer, but he writes it anyway. Once the paper is folded so the text is hidden, he settles down for bed.

In the morning, the paper is on the floor. Boruto sighs, figuring that if he didn't simply knock it over in his sleep, it was the not-spirit spitting in the face of his attempt to be nice. He unfolds the paper just to review his own writing, but under last night's question, he finds tiny, reluctant handwriting. It just says "fruit smoothie".

Boruto squints at it.

"That's not very specific," he grouses. "Besides, that's not even food..."

Still, it made at least a small effort to respond to him in a way that surprisingly wasn't completely hostile. It leaves Boruto feeling strangely energetic.

**Author's Note:**

> just a reminder that i love getting comments on my writing 💗💗💗


End file.
